Internet Governance Civil Society Coordination Group (CSCG)

Civil Society Speakers for IGF Closing Ceremony

Aug 26, 2014

Dear Secretariat,

Subi Chaturvedi passed on to us your request for civil society nominations for speakers for this years IGF Closing Ceremony. Thank you for ensuring that civil society is involved in choosing its representatives to speak on this occasion.

This request was dealt with by the Internet Governance Civil Society Coordination Group (CSCG). This peak group consists of representatives of the major civil society coalitions involved in Internet Governance issues, including Internet Governance Caucus, Best Bits, Association for Progressive Communications, Diplo Foundation, Just Net Coalition, Civicus, and Non Commercial Stakeholders Group of ICANN. The group, founded in 2013, has a primary role to ensure a co-ordinated civil society response and conduit when it comes to making civil society appointments to outside bodies. This was accepted and respected during the NetMundial (Brazil) process, and by the 1net community, and we will be pleased to also work with IGF in the future as regards civil society representation.

It was therefore appropriate for this body to consider the question of speakers for the IGF closing session as requested.

After calling for expressions of interest and nominations through the various networks, the CSCG discussed prospective speakers and makes the following recommendations.

Firstly, we believe that civil society must have two speakers. Just like governments or any other stakeholder group, we have more perspectives than can be handled with just one speaking slot, and even with two speakers we feel we are under-represented.

With this in mind, and bearing also in mind the multistakeholder principle that stakeholders should choose their own representatives, we submit the following two names.

SPEAKER NO 1

Our first speaker is Dr Burcu Kilic. Dr Kilic is a Turkish citizen who is an expert on legal, economic and political issues surrounding intellectual property law, policy, development and innovation. We are pleased to be able to nominate such a talented speaker from the host country.

SPEAKER NO 2

Our second speaker is Dr Milton Mueller. Dr Mueller is a Professor at Syracuse University. His research, teaching and public service for the last 15 years have been concentrated on the internet governance arena.

Please let us know if you need any further information or contact details.

Sincerely,

Ian Peter

Independent Chair, on behalf of the Internet Governance Civil Society Coordination Group